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The Birth of Modern Astronomy

Figure 2.9 Galileo Galilei(1564–1642). (Art Resource, NY)

In the century following the death of Copernicus and the publication of his theory of the solar system, two scientists—Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler—made indelible imprints on the study of astronomy. Contemporaries, they were aware of each other's work and corresponded from time to time about their theories. Each achieved fame for his discoveries and made great strides in popularizing the Copernican viewpoint, yet in their approaches to astronomy they were as different as night and day.

GALILEO'S HISTORIC OBSERVATIONS

Galileo Galilei (Figure 2.9) was an Italian mathematician and philosopher. By his willingness to perform experiments to test his ideas—a rather radical approach in those days (see Discovery 2-2)—and by embracing the brand-new technology of the telescope, he revolutionized the way in which science was done, so much so that he is now widely regarded as the father of experimental science.

The telescope was invented in Holland in the early seventeenth century. Hearing of the invention (but without having seen one), Galileo built a telescope for himself in 1609 and aimed it at the sky. What he saw conflicted greatly with the philosophy of Aristotle and provided much new data to support the ideas of Copernicus.*

Using his telescope, Galileo discovered that the Moon had mountains, valleys, and craters—terrain in many ways reminiscent of that on Earth. Looking at the Sun (something that should never be done directly, and which may eventually have blinded Galileo), he found imperfections—dark blemishes now known as sunspots. These observations ran directly counter to the orthodox wisdom of the day. By noting the changing appearance of these sunspots from day to day, Galileo inferred that the Sun rotates, approximately once per month, around an axis roughly perpendicular to the ecliptic plane.

Figure 2.10 Venus Phases (a) The phases of Venus, rendered at different points in the planet's orbit. If Venus orbits the Sun and is closer to the Sun than is Earth, as Copernicus maintained, then Venus should display phases, much as our Moon does. As shown here, when directly between Earth and the Sun, Venus's unlit side faces us, and the planet is invisible to us. As Venus moves in its orbit (at a faster speed than Earth moves in its orbit), progressively more of its illuminated face is visible from Earth. Note also the connection between orbital phase and the apparent size of the planet. Venus seems much larger in its crescent phase than when it is full because it is much closer to us during its crescent phase. (The insets at bottom left and right are actual photographs of Venus at two of its crescent phases.) (b) The Ptolemaic model (see also Figure 2.6) is unable to account for these observations. In particular, the full phase of the planet cannot be explained. Seen from Earth, Venus reaches only a "fat crescent" phase, then begins to wane as it nears the Sun.

Galileo also saw four small points of light, invisible to the naked eye, orbiting the planet Jupiter and realized that they were moons. To Galileo, the fact that another planet had moons provided the strongest support for the Copernican model. Clearly, Earth was not the center of all things. He also found that Venus showed a complete cycle of phases, like those of our Moon (Figure 2.10), a finding that could be explained only by the planet's motion around the Sun. These observations were more strong evidence that Earth is not the center of all things and that at least one planet orbited the Sun.

In 1610, Galileo published a book called Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), detailing his observational findings and his controversial conclusions supporting the Copernican theory. In reporting and interpreting the wondrous observations made with his new telescope, Galileo was directly challenging both the scientific orthodoxy and the religious dogma of his day. He was (literally) playing with fire—he must certainly have been aware that only a few years earlier, in 1600, the astronomer Giordano Bruno had been burned at the stake in Rome, in part for his heretical teaching that Earth orbited the Sun. However, by all accounts, Galileo delighted in publicly ridiculing and irritating his Aristotelian colleagues. In 1616 his ideas were judged heretical, Copernicus's works were banned by the Roman Catholic Church, and Galileo was instructed to abandon his astronomical pursuits.

But Galileo would not desist. In 1632 he raised the stakes by publishing Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which compared the Ptolemaic and Copernican models. The book presented a discussion among three people: one of them a dull-witted Aristotelian, whose views time and again were roundly defeated by the arguments of one of his two companions, an articulate proponent of the heliocentric system. To make the book accessible to a wide popular audience, Galileo wrote it in Italian rather than Latin.

These actions brought Galileo into direct conflict with the authority of the Church. Eventually, the Inquisition forced him, under threat of torture, to retract his claim that Earth orbits the Sun, and he was placed under house arrest in 1633. He remained imprisoned for the rest of his life. Not until 1992 did the Church publicly forgive Galileo's "crimes." But the damage to the orthodox view of the universe was done, and the Copernican genie was out of the bottle once and for all.

THE ASCENDANCY OF THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM

Although Renaissance scholars were correct, they could not prove that our planetary system is centered on the Sun, or even that Earth moves through space. Direct evidence for this was obtained only in the early eighteenth century, when astronomers discovered the aberration of starlight—a slight (20") shift in the observed direction to a star, caused by Earth's motion perpendicular to the line of sight. Additional proof came in the mid-nineteenth century, with the first unambiguous measurement of stellar parallax. Further verification of the heliocentricity of the solar system came gradually, with innumerable observational tests that culminated with the expeditions of our unmanned space probes of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The development and eventual acceptance of the heliocentric model were milestones in human thinking. This removal of Earth from any position of great cosmic significance is generally known, even today, as the Copernican principle.

The Copernican revolution is a good example of how the scientific method, though affected at any given time by the subjective whims, human biases, and even sheer luck of researchers, does ultimately lead to a definite degree of objectivity. Over time, many groups of scientists checking, confirming, and refining experimental tests can neutralize the subjective attitudes of individuals. Usually one generation of scientists can bring sufficient objectivity to bear on a problem, though some especially revolutionary concepts are so swamped by tradition, religion, and politics that more time is necessary. In the case of heliocentricity, objective confirmation was not obtained until about three centuries after Copernicus published his work and more than 2000 years after Aristarchus had proposed the concept. Nonetheless, objectivity did in fact eventually prevail, and our knowledge of the universe has expanded immeasurably as a result.

*In fact, Galileo had already abandoned Aristotle in favor of Copernicus, although he had not published these beliefs at the time he began his telescopic observations.